Social care at a crossroads: Government-led reform enabled by technology

Local authorities spent £29.4 billion on adult social care in 2024/25 – £2.3 billion more than the previous year. Meeting rising demand and growing costs will require an additional £3.4 billion by 2028/29 – in short, demand is growing, and the system is at breaking point. Councils now need the conditions to move to preventative services, unlock community capacity, and deliver sustainable support.

The government’s 10 Year Health Plan sets out three fundamental shifts to create a health service that’s fit for the future: hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention. But those shifts will not create system-wider benefits without fundamental care redesign.

Adult social care leaders are keen to move faster to create new models of care enabled by care technology that supports people to live longer, healthier lives in their own homes. They also want to adopt more proactive, personalised support – 96 percent of leaders say they would rethink care delivery if technology and digital tools could enable a shift to prevention. However, good practice often remains in pilots, local pockets, or individual programmes.

How can the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) help local councils turn social care ambition into routine practice – and deliver system-wide benefits?

Build capacity and skills

Ambition isn’t the issue. The question is whether councils can deliver change at pace, and use data in the right ways to sustain progress when operational pressures bite. Social care leaders already shoulder a significant burden – the pressure to transform faster, without strengthening delivery capacity, risks overwhelming an already strained system.

The government, namely the DHSC, can set common expectations and make it easier for councils to learn from places that are making progress. In practical terms, this could mean identifying and scaling proven models from leading areas, supporting structured peer learning across councils, directing implementation support towards places facing the greatest delivery challenges, and building the workforce capability needed to make digital enablement a routine part of care delivery.

DHSC can also build confidence by sharing what works. Training is an important part of building social care teams’ capacity and skills, but true confidence comes when practitioners really see technology improving real decisions, reducing avoidable escalation, and supporting better outcomes for people.

Ensure national support

Managing the immediate pressures of workforce fragility, financial constraints, and system demand depends less on technology and more on the right operating models. Councils need funded capacity, practical support, and enough local freedom to adapt proven approaches to their own communities. This points to three practical asks for DHSC: fund local implementation capacity, agree a small national outcomes framework for prevention and independence, and create a national evidence and adoption programme based on real council delivery.

This doesn’t mean creating a single national operating model that all local areas must adhere to. It means establishing a common route to delivery – with enough national grip to stop every place reinventing the same approach, and enough local freedom to make it work in real communities.

Recognise broader demand

Between 2025 and 2026, working-age adults drawing on homecare support received an average of 19 hours of support a week, compared with 14 hours among those aged over 65. Demand is rising among younger adults, with 45,465 people aged 18 to 24 drawing on long-term adult social care support (up seven percent on the previous year). In 2024/25, councils spent £11.5 billion on long-term support for adults aged 18 to 64, close to the £12 billion spent on older people.

But the national debate about new models of care enabled by digital, data, and technology still focuses on ageing. This misses the full breadth of future demand around disability, welfare, employment, unpaid care, and economic participation – almost a fifth of adult social care leaders regularly use care technology to support people with learning disabilities and autism.

DHSC can help councils to make care technology a routine part of support for working-age adults by defining how care models need to be designed and delivered, with clear outcome measures and guidance. These care models will require different skills, experience, and a stronger understanding of lifelong disability, autism, mental health, employment, housing, and community participation.

Share the benefits

The government’s wider health agenda depends on social care. Neighbourhood health, prevention, discharge improvement, and closer-to-home support rely on strong local authority social care, resilient providers, and joined-up community capacity.

New models of care enabled by care technology, digital tools, and the insights they create can improve risk visibility, support safer discharge, target reablement, identify deterioration earlier, and give partners a clearer shared view of need. But those benefits will be missed if they sit in separate organisational scorecards.

Adult social care could play an instrumental role in avoiding escalation, reducing hospital demand, and supporting earlier intervention. Those benefits need to be visible, valued, and reinvested in the local capacity that created them. This calls for a more honest fiscal bridge between the organisations that invest, the people who benefit, and the budgets where savings or avoided costs show up. Unpaid carers and provider services should be more visible in this settlement, to ensure their contribution is recognised and appropriately supported.

Creating the conditions for councils to deliver

Social care now has renewed political backing and widespread support. But ambition will be confined to statements without a robust delivery programme. What’s needed are clear national expectations, practical guidance for implementation, and better use of community capacity – not mention a rethink of funding allocation. Importantly, benefits need to be tracked, understood, and rewarded. Care technology and digital tools shouldn’t be treated as a service to refer into. If properly embedded into social care practice, underpinned by wider care redesign, they will change the face of social care.